Climate activists apparently couldn’t believe their eyes and ears what they had to experience at a car dealership in Wolfsburg, Germany: The protesting academics – members of the climate activists Scientist Rebellion – had decided to tape themselves to the concrete floor of a Porsche showroom.
When the employees finished work, they simply turned off the lights and heating, leaving the scientists in the dark, cold room.
Apparently, the workers had also turned down a request from the activists to give them a “bowl to pee and defecate,” as incarcerated scientist Gianluca Grimalda later outraged on Twitter.
Also hunger strike
The car dealer said they “supported our right to protest, but they refused our request to give us a bowl so we could pee and defecate properly while we were trapped, and they turned off the heating.”
To protest their being ignored, some protesters then went on hunger strike – including Grimalda, who teaches at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Potentially “life-threatening” injury
After being glued in for 42 hours, the police freed the activists from their predicament – and arrested them without further ado. Instead of discussing demands for the decarbonisation of the transport sector, the car dealer called the police, Grimalda complained on Twitter.
He may also have injured himself with a “virtually sleepless night” during the “rather painful” action. His hand was severely swollen: “Doctors discovered that potentially life-threatening blood clots had formed in my hand.”
He was advised to be taken to hospital immediately. There he continued his hunger strike. (keep)